There’s a major push by House leaders today to judge the health care bill a fait accompli and ensure everyone that the deal put together by both chambers of Congress and the White House, which could be topped off in the next few days, will have no problem passing the House. Expect to see a run on words like “perfect,” “enemy” and “good.” Here’s Anthony Weiner:

“I think it’s going to pass,” Weiner told me. “There are a lot of people who have drawn lines in the sand that they’re erasing furiously today.”

Weiner cautioned there was still a key sticking point: He said the bill still needed to be tweaked so that every state should get the same level of assistance from the Federal government on Medicaid funding that Ben Nelson’s Nebraska is getting. He said he needed to see this fix before he could support the bill.

But he spoke about the overall bill almost like a foregone conclusion. “There are still some various and sundry things, but it’s mostly done,” he said, referring to efforts to merge the House and Senate bills. Negotiators will produce a final bill within days.

“A lot of people recognize that we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Weiner added.

I think there’s one thing underlying this. Democrats want health care to be over. They want to pivot away from an issue that, remarkably, is sapping at their governing capacity, after being the party associated with health care for decades. So institutionally speaking, there’s an overriding interest to rubber stamp whatever gets decided and move along. That’s why you see Joe Courtney, the point person on the excise tax, “conditionally embrace” the labor deal from yesterday. It’s why you see Woolsey saying that the final deal will be “as good as we’re going to get.” There’s exhaustion in the caucus, more than anything. Negotiators were up until 2 in the morning last night working on the bill; figuratively, it must feel like 5AM all the time.

So there’s a little theater in saying that the bill will pass. But let’s be clear that the deal isn’t done. And financing remains a problem, even with the excise tax out of the way.

Mr. Obama continues to insist that the health care bill not add to future deficits. According to the budget office, the Senate bill would reduce future federal deficits, over 10 years, by $132 billion. But when revenue from a new long-term care insurance program is set aside to pay future benefits, along with money for Social Security, the Senate bill would reduce future deficits by less than $10 billion.

So the change in the excise tax quickly put policymakers in an approximately $50-billion hole. And that hole is expected to grow even bigger as top White House officials and Congressional leaders work through other issues that will raise the cost of the legislation [...]

Officials are considering a number of steps that would broaden the Senate’s increase in the Medicare payroll tax. One would be to apply the payroll tax to capital gains and other “passive” or “unearned” income. Another would be to dial up the increase in the payroll tax rate itself [...]

But with so much pressure on Democrats to increase the size of the legislation, and raise subsidies to make insurance affordable, there is little room to maneuver. Officials are already looking at ways to extract more savings from the pharmaceutical industry, and scouring the landscape for other provisions known in Capitol Hill lingo as “pay-fors.”

And then, of course, there’s that abortion issue, which isn’t going away because House and Senate negotiators wish it would.

Pelosi seems to think that she’s got a dozen Blue Dogs willing to flip their votes from no-to-yes, ensuring passage no matter what. I’m just not convinced. I could see some of the retiring Dems, like Bart Gordon and Brian Baird, changing their vote, but anyone up for re-election faces that same troubling dynamic of voting for, by all accounts, an unpopular bill in their districts.

AND, all of this becomes much more of a moot point if Martha Coakley stumbles up in Massachusetts, and the Democrats suddenly have only 59 votes in the Senate.

So before the victory laps are taken, I’d advise everyone to a) see if there’s an actual bill, and b) see if that bill can really get the expected support.

If we are going to give up the public option, we should get something for it.
The exchanges and other actual insurance providing provisions should start in 2013. Forget the impact on the CBO score, or hike the medicare tax on 200k earners to 1.2%.
what else?
If we can’t have a public option, we should require insurance companies to spend 90 percent of premium on medical care, pre-existing condition ban for everyone not just kids starting in 2010, the House 2x rating for older insured and, we must have a permanent COBRA extension for workers who lose their jobs.
Particularly important is for the HOUSE to stand up for COBRA extension for the unemployed, which is in the House bill, Section 113. We need to help the unemployed keep their insurance until the exchanges start, without forcing them into expensive high-risk pools.
Section 113 of the House bill permits the unemployed, many of whom can’t get individual coverage because of pre-existing conditions, to buy into their old group insurance until the insurance exchanges start in 2013.

AFAIC, you nailed David when you wrote “I think there’s one thing underlying this. Democrats want health care to be over. They want to pivot away from an issue that, remarkably, is sapping at their governing capacity, after being the party associated with health care for decades. So institutionally speaking, there’s an overriding interest to rubber stamp whatever gets decided and move along” ; the REAL question to ask is whether the Dems CAN govern given ObamaRahma’s insistence on ‘bi-partisanship’.

With Democrat Martha Coakley in trouble in the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, Democrats could lose vote No. 60 for President Obama’s health-care bill. In response, an army of lobbyists for drug companies, health insurance companies, and hospitals has teamed up to throw a high-dollar Capitol Hill fundraiser for Coakley next Tuesday night. The invitation is here.

Of the 22 names on the host committee–meaning they raised $10,000 or more for Coakley–17 are federally registered lobbyists, 15 of whom have health-care clients. Of the other five hosts, one is married to a lobbyist, one was a lobbyist in Pennsylvania, another is a lawyer at a lobbying firm, and another is a corporate CEO. Oh, and of course, there’s also the political action commitee for Boston Scientific Corporation.

All the leading drug companies have lobbyists on Coakley’s host committee: Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, and more. On the insurance side of things, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, HealthSouth, and United Health all are represented on the host committee.

Coakley in trouble? Pharma and HMO lobbyists to the rescue‎ – 6 days ago

Of the 22 names on the host committee–meaning they raised $10000 or more for Coakley–17 are federally registered lobbyists, 15 of whom have health-care …
Washington Examiner (blog) – 2 related articles »

Democrats or terrorists… Watching them attempt to “govern” is excruciatingly painful from them barring the door (even arresting) single payer advocates to proffering faux Wall Street reform. I’m reminded by how angry I felt during the election that the PIGS (ie superdelegates) had the power to throw the election… power given them by the corrupt corpracrats and now we see their “some aminals are more equal than other animals” philosophy play out in the making of sausage (legislations) …. from special status given one hold out Senators state citizens to union members receive special tax exclusion. It mAKES ME ANGRY AND SICK! I HATE THE TERRORIST DEMOCRATS and I will never vote for them again.

Fine with me… she’s not nearly the nut the Democratic pied pipers would have us believe. Infact unlike the phoney baloney lying democrats (witness Obama’s every promise broken and Hilary’s taking fire in the Ukraine) Sarah Palin may actually be a REAL person not some media (i.e. corporate) created “brand”.

Mr. Obama continues to insist that the health care bill not add to future deficits. According to the budget office, the Senate bill would reduce future federal deficits, over 10 years, by $132 billion. But when revenue from a new long-term care insurance program is set aside to pay future benefits, along with money for Social Security, the Senate bill would reduce future deficits by less than $10 billion.

Obama’s definition of future somehow doesn’t match with Websters: isn’t it the case that his calculations only cover the next 10 years, after which we all turn into pumpkins?

Everything is a GD sales job even when you’re the one being sold down the river. Obama, when you deliver this SOTU pitch, I hope you feel every iota of the disappointment, cynicism, and downright contempt being aimed at the television screens from the supporters you’ve deceived. No amount of silver-tongued gibberish can cover up the fact that you (that’s you alright, not the useless sell-outs in both houses, YOU) have capitulated away any chance for legitimate HCR for this country. Please save your breath with regard to the illusion of “this is only the first step” BS. We’ll all be making the equivalent of a house payment to very crooks who’ve brought about this mess in the first place, with no real change in the rats nest of paperwork or affordability of care for anyone other than the stock holders of AETNA and the like. You can furrow your brow, patronize your constituants, and chide your critics, but you’ve spent your political capital even faster than your predecessor (an unbelievable feat). You might just as well get up and tell everyone to suck on it, that would at least give a realistic appearance of what we now know to be the content of your character.

Hear that supporters of this bill? I’ve heard you ask if it was THAT bad why do the Republicans and insurance industry want it killed?

BECAUSE IT WAS AND IS ALL BULLSHIT. I’m telling you, the day this bill is signed, insurance AND pharma stocks are going to go up EVEN MORE than they did a couple weeks ago.

And I’m telling you that 10 years from now there’s not a person here that’s still going to think this was a good idea. And so to all of you who support this big bonanza FOR the insurance and pharma industry, YOU OWN IT. We’ll know who to blame.

And remember all the howling over Medicare Part D when the pharma lobbyists wrote the legislation? A LOT of the same ones howling then are supporting this POS written by the health insurance industry.

It’s OK, I get it now. IOKIYAR also happens to work for a lot people in that they believe IOKIYAD.

Own this bill and be proud of it. Or call your Senator and Rep and tell them to kill it.

And BTW, it’s NOT OK if you’re a Republican OR a Democrat. Passing legislation that harms the middle class/poor and helps the rich corporations is NEVER ok, no matter who passes the shit. Unless, of course, you’re a sell out that puts party over principle. I’m having none of that shit, thank you, after seeing the damage the last 8 years of that shit can do.

Fuck this piece of shit bill, and all who vote for it. And it’s a damned shame that most likely 3 or 4 presidential elections after voting for change and health care reform we’ll still be fighting for exactly that.

Yeah, but he’s gonna have THIS spiel well-rehearsed and vetted. The speech writers have got to be printing off and editing hundreds of versions. The Dems are in major damage-control mode. He’s going to be going over this one more than just once or twice in the mirror.

I’ll bet they’re already practicing their speeches for the 2016 elections too. I suddenly figured out the REAL reason why this POS doesn’t take effect until 2014.

Given the total lack of intelligence memory by the voters, the Democrats are going to campaign in 2016 on fixing this AND BLAMING THE REPUBLICANS. Which is a cute trick since not a single Republican is gonna vote for it.

Whatever the case, it’s pretty common to see. BE FRAID, BE VERY FRAID OF THOSE MEAN OLE PUBLICANS. Trying to justify the bullshit of voting for corporatist Democrats cause THOSE PUBLICANS WILL BE FAR WORSE AND RUIN TEH COUNTRY.

Typical… ad homenin… weak minded tripe. Back up you mindless belief that Sarah Palin is so bad with some FACTS FOOL!! you can’t do it. All you know is what you heard from pied piper news and radio (the CORPRATOCRACY) whom she scares the crap out of. Sarah Palin was an extremely popular governor who managed to extract money from the oil companies and give it to her citizens… a real Robin Hood there. You sir are a mindless idiot; learn to think for yourself.

How long is left on that term? It would be cool if he won but was in only long enough to vote no on HCR. Well, check that, the way this admin is going, finance reform is probably gonna to be a REAL humdinger.

They’ll probably just give the government’s money printing equipment over to them. Easier that way.

The way I read it… He’s afraid of Sarah Palin…. probably his own shadow too. I’m of the opinion she couldn’t be worse than what we have now which is nothing less than and incorrigibe pathologically lying poser.

It is interesting to me that so much of this emanates from Massachusetts,where Gruber was a key architect in the Romney Care Legislation of 2006.

What I have seen little coverage on is Romney’s financial investments in health care facilities,himself-the Carlyle Group ,too.

Over at David Dayen’s thread about biologics(downthread,today) I posted quite a few entries about a DOJ suit filed in Boston very recently against Omnicare for millions in kickbacks to nursing homes. It is well worth reading ,since it involves Big Pharma,namely Johnson and Johnson.

My last post on that thread is this————————

Oh, the irony of this:

“It was a great plan in Massachusetts, but the notion that you could do this nationally is simply laughable,” said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist and member of the Health Insurance Connector Authority board that oversees the Massachusetts program. “If you’re going to cover the uninsured nationally you’re going to have to raise new funds.”

Gruber added yesterday, “He (Romney)gets credit for a brilliant plan here in Massachusetts but he should be honest about what it takes to create such a plan nationally.”
(Gruber referring to Romney’s Massachusetts health care reform.)

NOTE:Should not have Gruber taken his OWN advice BEFORE recently asserting that lower health costs would result in driving higher wages?

(Romney’s universal healthcare idea can’t be copied in most states …Nov 3, 2007 … It sounds like a simple solution to one of the nation’s most vexing problems: how to provide healthcare coverage to the uninsured without …http://www.boston.com › News › Nation – Similar)

Having the Democrats be the one who turned the middle class into corporate serfs while also doing a huge wealth transfer from the middle class to the insurance company execs seems much worse than having a Republican Senator from MA.